S . S . L .

Minutiae for April 8, 2004

[ These minutes would be a barren wasteland, were we to include only the
important facts pertaining to actual work accomplished.  A dispensation
will therefore be made not to exclude the nullspace of today's events from
their report.  After all, the kernel is the most important part. ]

Snacks and notes for next tuesday:  Brendan  (what a guy!)

[ Carl arrives exactly one minute later than Paul had guessed, and so, he
lost a ten million dollar bet.  The rest of the Sizzle team convinced Carl
that they had just proved the quotient rule, as appeared on the board. ]

[ John added:  And, ``"'' We're not being sarcastic at all! ``"'' ]

No one has very much to report, but everyone knows exactly what they need
to work on:

Sam -- continuing to write up the proof of an identity used in the
       Newton's method problem.

Carl -- working out the relative primality details in the Newton
        recurrence when b=0 or c=0, and writing it up.

Paul/Emilie -- continue working with their recurrences in the lab

Martin -- continue working on some C code.

John -- read over what people have written up, and help out in ways that
        only a Post Doc can.

OK!  To the Batcave!

[ A small debate arises, confirming that the Batcave is actually not in
B119 nor in B107, but, rather, on B3, since even if you were to paint the
black walls of the Batcave white, or remove its many computers, it would
still be the Batcave; however, were it moved to the 5th floor, it could no
longer rightly be called the Batcave. ]

All work diligently in the Lab.

[ Hal mentions RADICAL PACIFISM (as opposed to ordinary pacifism), and,
over typing up SSL work, a crazy debate ensues over its implications. ]

[ Sam suggests: "Why don't you just leave this all out ... it's so
ridiculous!" ]

Back to B119 for snack.  Thanks for the bagels Sam!
Question: Does Einstein's have unleavened bagels?

Back to B107.   [ the imitation-brand 'batcave' ]

Hal  looked at some C code that Martin had, which apparently was very bad.
     They discussed the archaicness of Fortran, and how that may have
     contributed to the badness of the code.

Carl  finished showing that P_n and Q_n are still relatively prime when
      either b=0 or c=0 (but not both).  There was a slight scare when
      realized that it is _not_ true for b=c=0, but that only lasted until
      we realized that that fell under the case where b^2-4ac=0, (i.e,
      double roots) which is what we'd expect.

Paul/Emilie  continued working on maple stuff.

Jim  What do you see as being the main bottlenecks now?  Are there any
     mathematical bottlenecks?  If you want to use graphics in your
     writeups, you can.  Although you are encouraged to learn how to do
     these things, others can do the graphics for you, if we get to crunch
     time.  Would it be a good idea to make a deadline?

Paul  wants to explain "why" they're doing 2D lifting recurrences in the
      first place.

John  Should we try to finish the writeup in 'chunks'? (ie,

Sam  likes working in group environment (ie, SSL in B107), feels it's
     most productive way (like, for getting help with how to do TeX stuff)

Hal  likes deadline idea.

Jim  Let's set a deadline for tuesday the 20th.  We can mention the stuff
     that we didn't have time to prove, but at least we will be sure to
     have something to send out.  If you later finish it, you can always
     add it then.  You have perpetual rights to your work in the future!

[ A blessed holiday to all you celebrating! ]